a year of prayer: 365 Rosaries

Today, April 30, we celebrate the feast of Pope Saint Pius V (1504-1572), confessor, reformer, and “Pope of the Holy Rosary.” Throughout his life and papacy, Pope Pius V worked to reform and solidify Catholic unity, securing the traditional Latin Rite of Mass, establishing seminaries, and publishing works to be used in churches throughout the world. Along with this, Pope Pius V lived the simple life of a Dominican, refusing the riches and luxuries thrust upon him, and instead ministering to the poor and needy. Through his deep devotion and prayers to Our Blessed Mother, the Battle of Lepanto was decisively won for Christendom.


Born Michael Ghislieri to a poor, but noble family in Bosco, Italy, the future pope was raised with an excellent education in piety and holiness. As a child he tended the family’s sheep in the fields, but entered the Dominican Order at age fourteen, where he excelled at his studies. Recognized as a gifted scholar and observed to have a deep relationship with the Lord, Michael was appointed a lecturer in philosophy and theology at Pavia, and very early became involved in the reform movement in the Church.

At the age of 24, Michael was ordained a priest and continued his teaching of philosophy an divinity in Genoa. For the next sixteen years, Michael traveled to various Dominican houses and encouraged a stricter following of the Order's Rule with both words and example. These reforming labors brought him to the attention of other members of the reform movement, and he was given important positions (first Inquisitor, and then placed as authority over the Inquisition) in Como, Bergamo, and Rome.

In 1556, Michael was consecrated bishop of Sutri and Nepi, somewhat against his will, and later appointed to the diocese of Mondevi which had been ravaged by war. In a very short time, under his spiritual direction, the diocese was flourishing and prosperous. Michael worked to lead his flock with words and example and served as a continual messenger encouraging personal piety and devotion to God. Before long, he was elevated to the College of cardinals. His views on reform were often asked by the Holy Father, and he was noted for his boldness in expressing his views.

In December of 1565, Pope Pius IV died. Having successfully engineered the Council of Trent, his replacement would be charged with carrying out the decrees of the council. Somewhat surprisingly, Michael—a simple Dominican friar—was selected to ascend to the Chair of Peter. It was the late pontiff's nephew, Saint Charles Borromeo, who was the driving force in the election of Michael as the new pope, for he recognized that a remarkable leader would be needed if the decrees of the council were to bear fruit.

Michael took the name Pius V, and immediately set about reforming the Church and enforcing the decrees of Trent. His holiness and austerity of life were notable, and he succeeded in bringing simplicity even into the papal household. He refused to wear the flowing garments of previous popes and insisted upon wearing his white Dominican habit even as head of the Church. To this day, the pope wears white, a custom begun by this Dominican pontiff.

He began his pontificate by giving large alms to the poor, ill, and needy. In his charity he visited the hospitals, and sat by the bedside of the sick, consoling them and preparing them to die. He washed the feet of the poor, and embraced the lepers. As pontiff he practiced the virtues he had displayed as a monk and a bishop. His piety was not diminished, and, in spite of the heavy labors and anxieties of his office, he made at least two meditations a day on bended knees in presence of the Blessed Sacrament. He insisted on austerity and banished luxury from his court, raised the standard of morality.

Pope Pius V further labored with his friend, Saint Charles Borromeo, to lay a solid foundation and spread the Faith, preserving the doctrine of the Church. Through papal decrees and example, Pope Pius reformed the clergy, obliged his bishops to reside in their dioceses, and the cardinals to lead lives of simplicity and piety. He reformed the Cistercians, and supported the missions of the New World. Under his direction, seminaries were established, diocesan synods were held, and the Breviary and Missal were reformed. Pope Pius V published catechisms, ordered a revision of the Latin Vulgate, and revitalized the study of theology and canon law. Pope Pius also established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes for the young.

In striving to reform both Church and state, Pius encountered vehement opposition from England's Queen Elizabeth (who he excommunicated) and the Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Problems in France and in the Netherlands also hindered the pope’s hopes for a Europe united against the Turks. Only at the last minute, through considerable effort, was he able to organize a fleet which won a decisive victory in the Gulf of Lepanto, off Greece, on October 7, 1571. The defeat of the Turks at Lepanto, is recognized as the result of his prayers and efforts to Our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of the Rosary. Before the victorious fleet returned to Rome, the pope had had knowledge of the victory through a miraculous vision of Mary. He proclaimed a period of thanksgiving and placed the invocation "Mary, Help of Christians" in the Litany of Loreto, establishing the feast in commemoration of the victory.

His faith and devotion to Mary was made evident through his example, as well as his papal writings. In his “Consuieverunt Romani,” published in 1569, Pope Pius V wrote about the power and devotion of the Holy Rosary:

The Roman Pontiffs, and the other Holy Fathers, our predecessors, when they were pressed in upon by temporal or spiritual wars, or troubled by other trials, in order that they might more easily escape from these, and having achieved tranquility, might quietly and fervently be free to devote themselves to God, were wont to implore the divine assistance, through supplications or Litanies to call forth the support of the saints, and with David to lift up their eyes unto the Mountains, trusting with firm hope that thence would they receive aid.


1. Prompted by their example, and, as is piously believed, by the Holy Ghost, the inspired Blessed founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, (whose institutes and rule we ourselves expressly professed when we were in minor orders), in circumstances similar to those in which we now find ourselves, when parts of France and of Italy were unhappily troubled by the heresy of the Albegenses, which blinded so many of the worldly that they were raging most savagely against the priests of the Lord and the clergy, raised his eyes up unto heaven, unto that mountain of the Glorious Virgin Mary, loving Mother of God. For she by her seed has crushed the head of the twisted serpent, and has alone destroyed all heresies, and by the blessed fruit of her womb has saved a world condemned by the fall of our first parent. From her, without human hand, was that stone cut, which, struck by wood, poured forth the abundantly flowing waters of graces. And so Dominic looked to that simple way of praying and beseeching God, accessible to all and wholly pious, which is called the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the same most Blessed Virgin is venerated by the angelic greeting repeated one hundred and fifty times, that is, according to the number of the Davidic Psalter, and by the Lord's Prayer with each decade. Interposed with these prayers are certain meditations showing forth the entire life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, thus completing the method of prayer devised by the by the Fathers of the Holy Roman Church. This same method St. Dominic propagated, and it was, spread by the Friars of Blessed Dominic, namely, of the aforementioned Order, and accepted by not a few of the people. Christ's faithful, inflamed by these prayers, began immediately to be changed into new men. The darkness of heresy began to be dispelled, and the light of the Catholic Faith to be revealed. Sodalities for this form of prayer began to be instituted in many places by the Friars of the same Order, legitimately deputed to this work by their Superiors, and confreres began to be enrolled together.


2. Following the example of our predecessors, seeing that the Church militant, which God has placed in our hands, in these our times is tossed this way and that by so many heresies, and is grievously troubled and afflicted by so many wars, and by the deprave morals of men, we also raise our eyes, weeping but full of hope, unto that same mountain, whence every aid comes forth, and we encourage and admonish each member of Christ's faithful to do likewise in the Lord.


Pope Pius V died in 1572, at the age of sixty-eight, still tirelessly serving the Church. His relics were placed in the Basilica of Mary Major, as a tribute to his eternal devotion to the Blessed Virgin, where they are venerated today.





Father,
You chose Saint Pius V as pope of Your Church
to protect the faith and give You more fitting worship.
By his prayers,
help us to celebrate Your holy mysteries
with a living faith and an effective love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen